Poland is going to delay signing a gas agreement it has reached with Russia and is willing to renegotiate it, taking into account the European Commission's concerns that it may not comply with European Union rules, a spokeswoman for the commission said Thursday.

The Poles "have clearly said that they will delay the agreement and they will talk to us first and they will explain to us what is in the agreement," the spokeswoman said during a regular press briefing.

"We also got signs, and it was also told us by the Poles, that they are happy to renegotiate the agreement in line with our concerns," she added.

Poland has been negotiating with Russia for more than a year and finally reached an agreement in December, although it hasn't yet been signed, with unconfirmed press reports in Poland saying the government wants to make sure the agreement conforms with the EU law before signing it.

The new government-level gas agreement was initialed last year. PGNiG and Russian gas company OAO Gazprom (GAZP.RS) earlier this year reached a new corporate agreement on higher gas deliveries to Poland that corresponds with the governmental deal.

Poland 's government in February cleared a January deal between local gas monopoly PGNiG (PGN.WA) and the Russian gas firm OAO Gazprom (GAZP.RS) to boost natural gas deliveries to Poland .

Under what is known as the Yamal deal, Gazprom agreed to boost gas supplies to Poland to the maximum of 10.2 billion cubic meters a year, measured in accordance with Polish norms, and 11 billion cubic meters, measured according to Russian norms.

Signed in 1996, the Yamal contract was extended to 2037 from 2022 agreed earlier. The parties also agreed to extend an earlier agreement for gas transit using the Yamal-Europe pipeline to Germany until 2045.

The agreement also settles the dispute over overdue transit fees that Gazprom owed to the local company operating the Polish strand of the Yamal pipeline. The Russian firm and PGNiG jointly own the pipeline operator.

Instead of paying the arrears directly to the operator, Gazprom offered a discount for gas PGNiG buys from the Russian firm.

PGNiG Chief Executive Michal Szubski said earlier this year PGNiG's discount agreed in the new contract could give the company more than $200 million in savings over the next five years.

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